Nylander ready to go….sort of

Michael Nylander was in typical rink rat mode today, staying on the ice for the morning skate some 15 minutes after all of the others Rangers regulars. The one difference is that Nylander has missed the last two days with the flu, and still isn’t 100 percent.

“I feel better,” he said. “That’s the good part.”

The father of six children, Nylander figured it was inevitable that he was going to come down with what was trickling through the house. He was in the stands for one of his sons’ hockey games and he shared a water bottle with his daughter. And when she fell ill soon after, Nylander figured he was doomed.

“It was just a waiting time for me,” he said.

So there you have it: should the Rangers get eliminated from the playoffs and the NHL goes under while trying to promote a Buffalo-Ottawa Eastern Conference final, you can blame some Greenwich, Conn., third-grader for its downfall.

Seriously, Nylander played through this on Sunday and Tuesday as well, so it shouldn’t be as big of an issue now that he’s actually showing some improvement.

No changes are expected in the lineup.

I’ll have more in a bit, but for now I’m going to try to grab an hour’s sleep.

The lead hockey and golf writer for The Journal News and LoHud.com, Sam Weinman, 33, has placed among the top three in the Golf Writers Association of America writing contest in three consecutive years, including a first-place finish in 2004. In 2005, his golf coverage also led to a top-five finish in The Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest, his third such finish in the past five years.
A native of Rye and an avid hockey player since he was 5 years old, Weinman is a 1996 graduate of the University of New Hampshire.
He lives in Port Chester with his wife, Lisa, and sons Charlie and Will.